Revision as of 12:30, April 23, 2012

The Holy Metropolis of Larisa and Tyrnavos is under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece. The metropolis is of ancient origin and is located in Thessaly in central Greece.

History

A bishop of Larisa was recorded attending the First Ecumenical Council in 325. Larisa was established as an archdiocese by emperor Constantine I. The French historian and theologian Michel Le Quien cites twenty-nine bishops of Larisa from the fourth to the eighteenth centuries. During the period of the tenth through twelfth centuries the metropolis had up to 28 suffragan sees. The subsequent invasions by the Ottoman Turks made Larisa an uninhabited and deserted town. Under Turkish domination the number of suffragans fell to only ten, that then gradually disappeared. As a result the see of the Metropolis of Larisa was transferred to Trikala where it remained for several centuries.

By the end of the fourteenth century, Larisa had become a Turkish town in which the inhabitants were exclusively Muslims. The town remained so until the 1730s when Metropolitan Iakovos II returned the see from Trikala to Larisa with the establishment in 1734 of the present day Metropolis of Larisa and Tyrnavos.